Migration and the search for a better

way of life: a critical exploration of

lifestyle migration

Michaela Benson and Karen O’Reilly

Abstract

For the past few years, the term ‘lifestyle migration’ has been used to refer to an
increasing number of people who take the decision to migrate based on their belief
that there is a more fulfilling way of life available to them elsewhere. Lifestyle
migration is thus a growing, disparate phenomenon, with important but little under-
stood implications for both societies and individuals. This article outlines and
explores in detail a series of mobilities that have in common relative affluence and
this search for a better lifestyle. We attempt to define the limits of the term lifestyle
migration, the characteristics of the lifestyle sought, and the place of this form of
migration in the contemporary world. In this manner, we map the various migra-
tions that can be considered under this broad rubric, recognising the similarities and
differences in their migration trajectories. Further to this, drawing on the sociologi-
cal literature on lifestyle, we provide an initial theoretical conceptualisation of this
phenomenon, attempting to explain its recent escalation in various guises, and
investigating the historical, sociological, and individualised conditions that inspire
this migration. This article is thus the first step in defining a broader programme
for the study of lifestyle migration. We contend that the study of this migration is
especially important in the current era given the impact such moves have on places
and people at both ends of the migratory chain.

Introduction

In this article, we explore the usefulness of ‘lifestyle migration’ as an analytical

tool in explaining a budding sociological phenomenon: the relocation of people
within the developed world searching for a better way of life. We outline the
unique characteristics of this form of migration, locating this migratory trend as
a consequence of particular historical, sociological, and individualised condi-
tions. In this manner, we present a new way of conceptualising a trend that runs
counter to the most important or numerically dominant streams as identified
by most migration researchers (eg Bommes and Morawska, 2005; Castles and
Miller, 2003; Papastergiadis, 2000), yet appears to be a historical continuation of
earlier mobilities including the Grand Tour, adventure travel, and voluntary,
The Sociological Review, 57:4 (2009)
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 Migration and the search for a better way of life

temporary,and‘love’ migration (King, 2002).While it is recognised that,broadly

speaking, the search for a better way of life is meaningful for all migrants, this
paper examines a growing range of contemporary mobilities that intimate
the growing interest in lifestyle within sociology.
The migration of relatively affluent individuals has been largely overlooked
in the more general literature on migration. Where affluent migrants have
been studied, the major focus has been on professional expatriates (see for
example Amit, 2001, 2002; Amit-Talai, 1998; Beaverstock, 2002; Cohen, 1977;
Fechter, 2007; Iredale, 2001; Nowicka, 2006) or International Retirement
Migration, with a particular focus on policy implications (see for example
Casado-Díaz, 2006; Helset et al., 2005; Rodríguez et al., 2005; Schriewer and
García, 2005). As Aledo Tur (2005) has noted, a policy focus tends to exclude
relatively affluent migrants who do not fit the stereotypical idea of a migrant
in the given destinations, do not compete for jobs, and tend not to be racialised
as other immigrants. Despite the significant and increasing number of affluent
individuals migrating in search of a better way of life (with an increasing
number of locations involved as both sending communities and destinations),
in general they remain poorly understood and conceptualised. We contend
that the study of these relatively affluent migrants is especially important in
the current era given the impact such moves has on places and people at both
ends of the migratory chain (Mantecón, 2008).
Since this phenomenon of moving for a better way of life has rarely been
covered by standard migration typologies (but see King, 2002), researchers
have attempted to link their studies to wider phenomena using umbrella
concepts such as, inter alia, retirement migration, leisure migration, (inter-
national) counterurbanisation, second home ownership, amenity-seeking and
seasonal migration. None of these conceptualisations, however, is fully inclu-
sive in grasping the complexity of this trend and uniting its various elements.
In all these cases, research shows a common narrative through which respon-
dents render their lives meaningful (Cortazzi, 2001) – the search for a different
lifestyle, a significantly better quality of life which underlies migration. We
argue here that despite the peculiarity of each case, these common lifestyle
concerns demonstrate that these different migrations can be considered as a
single phenomenon – lifestyle migration.
As we perceive it, lifestyle migrants are relatively affluent individuals of all
ages, moving either part-time or full-time to places that, for various reasons,
signify, for the migrant, a better quality of life. Ethnographic accounts espe-
cially have revealed a narrative of escape permeating migrants’ accounts of
the decision to migrate, further emphasised by their negative presentations
of life before migration. Migration is thus often described using language like
‘getting out of the trap’, ‘making a fresh start’, ‘a new beginning’ (eg Helset
et al., 2005; Karisto, 2005; Salvá Tomás, 2005). The fundamental features of
the different lifestyles sought thus include the re-negotiation of the work-life
balance, quality of life, and freedom from prior constraints. Through these
strategies of reorientation, the migrants seek the greater good in life, however

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Michaela Benson and Karen O’Reilly

that might be perceived. Lifestyle migration is thus a search, a project, rather

than an act, and it encompasses diverse destinations, desires and dreams.

The search for a better way of life

The search for the good life as a comparative project is a consistent theme in
lifestyle migration. Migrants retrospectively explain their specific relocation
contrasting the merits of the host community – the slow pace of life; the relative
cost of living (including cheap property prices); the climate and health benefits;
a feeling of community – with the shortcomings of home – rising levels of crime
and unemployment; lack of community spirit; high-pressured lifestyles (or the
‘rat race’); and low quality of life (eg O’Reilly, 2000; Sunil et al., 2007). These
narratives of decline have been removed from the individual and historiographic
contexts, rather than being analysed as narrative (eg Buller and Hoggart, 1994;
King,Warnes and Williams, 2000).As retrospective stories, they may not reflect
objective reality; the presented advantages of life in the destination are often
romanticised accounts, while the migrants’ representations of the ills of their
home society are often overstated. However, the exaggerated comparison
between life before and after migration provides a rationalisation of this form
of migration extending beyond the discussion of economic privilege. Through
such narrative accounts, the migrants challenge their depiction as consumers,
emphasising instead their substantial, personal reasons for migrating.
Migration stories thus additionally emphasise individualised, self-realisation
narratives of the decision to migrate. Many stress the particular events and
circumstances leading up to their migration,or explain their migration in relation
to one watershed event (Benson, 2007; Hoey, 2005; O’Reilly, 2000). This might
be redundancy, a change in working status (eg retirement), or a bereavement,
each of which is experienced as traumatic in some way. Migration is presented
as a way of overcoming the trauma of these events, of taking control of their
lives, or as releasing them from ties and enabling them to live lives more ‘true’
to themselves. Life after migration is thus presented as the antithesis of life
before migration, not only generally, but also on a more personal level.
Because the fundamental features of the different lifestyles sought by such
migrants include the good life, escape from past individual and community
histories, and the opportunity for self-realisation, strategies post migration
often include the re-negotiation of the work-life balance, maintaining quality
of life and freedom from prior constraints. However, in order to achieve and
maintain their new, preferable lifestyles, many migrants still need to generate
income following migration, and it is common to find that they run small
businesses as ‘self-employed expatriates’ (Stone and Stubbs, 2007). Their
choice of enterprise varies and, while many work within tourism or providing
services for other migrants, the advances in communications technology
make the possibilities endless. Importantly, these lifestyle migrants use their
businesses as a means to an end; they use them to fund their new lifestyles

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 Migration and the search for a better way of life

(Befus et al., 1988; Madden, 1999; Stone and Stubbs, 2007). For example, when
small business owners on the Costa del Sol were asked why they moved, they
listed climate, quality of life, and lifestyle ahead of business opportunities.
Lifestyle remains the main priority (Madden, 1999). Individuals often seek
self-employment not because they cannot find work locally, but because they
prefer being their own boss. As Stone and Stubbs argue, ‘working for others
. . . was not part of the new life that they had envisaged’ (2007: 438). Self-
employed, the migrants have a greater degree of control over how much they
work, and thus maintain what they perceive as an acceptable work-life
balance.There is thus often a limit to how much the migrants will engage in the
expansion – both in size and pecuniary terms – of their businesses, for fear that
it will disturb the work-life balance they have established.
Importantly, entrepreneurial activities undertaken by these migrants are
most often a departure from their careers in life before migration; Hoey’s
(2005) discovery that ‘the pie guy’ had previously worked as an engineer is
perhaps the best example of the contrast between life before and after migra-
tion. It is often the case that many lifestyle migrants have little or no previous
experience of establishing and running businesses, but many of them take the
opportunity of migrating to follow their dreams (some more successfully than
others). In this respect, it can be seen that this form of migration does have a
liberatory potential, instilling into people the idea that they can do anything
they want. However, when viewed more clearly within the context of people’s
lives before migration, this apparent disjuncture is not so clear-cut. The
migrants take transferable skills from their jobs before migration, which they
then put to use in their new businesses.
As we have described in this section, the search for a better way of life is
necessarily a comparative project. Presenting their migration within a compara-
tive frame, the migrants provide an easily understandable justification for their
migration. However, what is often understated is the effort migrants invest in
making their dreams a reality, and achieving an appropriate work-life balance.

The search for idyllic places

The destinations chosen by lifestyle migrants tell us a lot about the lives they
aspire to lead. The different or better way of life sought is diverse, and, to some
extent, and is specific to the destination chosen, reflecting individual prefer-
ences and aspirations. This specificity warrants further investigation, but we
can suggest a typology of lifestyle migration based upon the choice of desti-
nation. We therefore present three different types of lifestyle migrant: the
residential tourist, the rural idyll seeker, and the bourgeois bohemian.

Residential tourism
The most renowned of lifestyle migrants have chosen destinations in coastal
resorts or islands in the sun.1 Reflecting the extensive public interest in these

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migrants, academic research on this ‘heliotropic’ migration has been relatively

extensive, especially in relation to North-South migration, and with Spain as a
favoured destination.2 Migrants are attracted to places such as the Algarve,
Malta and the Costa del Sol with their characteristic ‘Mediterranean lifestyle’,
incorporating cuisine, wine, a slow pace of life, and outdoor living (Casado-
Díaz, 2006; King et al., 2000), features analogous to those mentioned by those
seeking the rural idyll and the bohemian ideal, discussed below. Although
these sun-seeking migrants could be portrayed as hedonistic ‘residential tour-
ists’ (Aledo Tur, 2005), the health benefits of the weather and the coast, as well
as the relaxation and tranquillity associated with tourist destinations, act as a
greater pull than any desire to be with other tourists (eg Sunil et al., 2007).
Nevertheless, the imaginings and desires of these coastal migrants are difficult
to distinguish from the social construction of the spaces associated with mass
tourism (O’Reilly, 2003, 2007b). Coastal lifestyle migration emphasises escape,
leisure, relaxation, and ‘tourism as a way of life’.

The rural idyll

Rural locations are imagined to offer lifestyle migrants a sense of stepping
back in time, getting back to the land, the simple or good life, as well as a sense
of community spirit. While it is often the case in lifestyle migration that
destinations are depicted as having the characteristics of rurality, the narra-
tives of those who move to the countryside, whether at home or abroad,
additionally stress the unique and embodied relationship that they have with
the landscape (see for example Benson, 2007; Geoffrey, 2007). The everyday
lives of migrants in these rural retreats are relatively understudied. There are,
however, an increasing number of researchers studying the British and North
European populations in France (see for example Deschamps, 2006; Benson,
2007, forthcoming; Geoffrey, 2007; Smallwood, 2007; Drake and Collard, forth-
coming). And we know that more and more people are seeking rural desti-
nations; Spain has seen an increase in international buyers seeking rural
properties, and new markets across Europe are opening up with, for example
as Nagy (2006) argues, the Romanian countryside attracting European city
dwellers with its relatively low-costs. And on the other side of the Atlantic,
Hoey (2005) spearheads the interest in the relocation of middle-class migrants
to non-metropolitan areas in an attempt to ‘start over’. Further afield, there
are North American communities in the highlands of Panama and Costa Rica
who have yet to be studied, destinations that are equally marketed to migrants
on the grounds that they offer escape. It will be interesting to explore the
extent to which these unstudied migrations can also be considered forms of
lifestyle migration.

Bourgeois Bohemians
Finally, there are migrants who seek alternative lifestyles in spaces that signify
what we might define as bohemian ideals. These destinations are characterised

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 Migration and the search for a better way of life

by certain spiritual, artistic, or creative aspirations and unique ‘cultural’ expe-

rience. The terms spiritual and ‘cultural’ in our rendering are intended in the
widest sense. Jacqueline Waldren’s (1996) accounts of the outsiders – literary
personalities, artists and musicians – of Deía, Mallorca is the seminal text on
these bohemian ideals and the way that they intersect with the daily lives
led in this particular Mediterranean village. More recently, Pola Bousiou
(2008) presents an account of the Mykoniots d’élection, a group of people
whose lives are characterised by their ‘constant return to the island of
Mykonos, Greece, and their insistence on living, acting, working and creating
in a tourist space offers them an alternative identity’ (2008: 3). For these
self-ascribed ‘nomads’, this Greek island is a place on which they can inscribe
their own alternative lifestyle. There are also a number of texts in preparation
that equally concentrate on the perception that a bohemian form of living
is available (see for example Korpela forthcoming; Trundle forthcoming),
exploring diverse destinations such as Florence, Italy and Varanasi, India.
These disparate destinations are not in any sense mutually exclusive in what
they putatively provide for the lifestyle migrant. We offer their description as
a framework for examining the similarities and differences in lifestyle migra-
tion narratives. This framework reflects our efforts to consider what might
be included in the definition of an emergent trend and what the uniqueness
of each destination (or imagining) might offer to the paradigm. As there is, to
date, comparatively little literature on lifestyle migration, there is plenty of
scope for the field to expand. There are many migration trends which could be
thus categorised and which have, to our knowledge, not yet been examined.
Narratives that emphasise the value of particular places and landscapes
highlight that how individuals perceive destinations is the result of a complex
interaction between their prior experiences of a location, wider culturally-
specific imaginings (distributed primarily through the media and ‘property
pornography’), certain historical and material conditions, and their individual
circumstances (including cultural, educational, and economic capital) at the
point of migration. The choice of destination, while also an intentional choice
about how to live, is thus the product of both structural constraints and
individual agency. We will now consider some of these wider circumstances,
beginning with a critical look at two ways these migrations have been con-
ceptualised to date: as (residential) tourism and as counter-urbanisation.

Conceptualising Lifestyle Migration

Tourism
Much lifestyle migration is a clear case of what Williams and Hall (2002) have
called tourism-informed mobility. In this rendering, migrants develop a taste
for a particular way of life while on holiday in an area, and subsequently
decide to migrate, encouraged by their imaginings of the place as offering a

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better lifestyle. Simply, tourist destinations (for example the Costa del Sol,
the Algarve, the Dordogne) become migration destinations. In some cases, the
migration destination continues to be socially constructed in terms of holiday
and its concomitant meanings (Shields, 1991), with lifestyle migrants seeming
loth to have their lives structured and routinised (O’Reilly, 2000). Therefore,
in terms of the lifestyle sought and the destination chosen, there is a partial
overlap between lifestyle migration and tourism, (O’Reilly, 2003 and 2007b).
But to apply a persistent ‘holiday feel’ to the lives of all lifestyle migrants
would, in our opinion, do an injustice to these populations, many of whom
actively strive to show that they are different from tourists who are often
negatively stereotyped (see for example Benson, 2007; Oliver, 2008; Waldren,
1996, 1997).
From another angle, the study of tourism as a phenomenon can inform our
exploration of lifestyle migration (O’Reilly, 2003). Tourism, of course, is based
on all those distinctions Urry (1990) recognised between leisure and work,
home and away, everyday and holiday. It is about escaping the drudgery of the
routine in order to ‘gaze’ on the exotic and other; the perfect foundation for an
anti-modern migration in search of community, security, leisure, and tranquil-
lity. The pursuit of a better way of life that characterises lifestyle migration
is the tourist’s pursuit of authentic experience (MacCannell, 1976) made epic,
an embedded feature of daily life within the destination (cf. Benson, 2007;
O’Reilly, 2007b). Tourism facilitates this form of migration by constructing
and marketing ideals. Through this process, these ideals become feasible and
attainable lifestyle choices.
Despite the links between the two, it is important not to reduce lifestyle
migration to tourism as this undermines the diverse motivations and experi-
ences of the migrants. Not all lifestyle migration began as tourism, and there
has yet to be an adequate explanation of why people might want to turn their
experiences from tourism into a way of life.

Counterurbanisation
The study of counterurbanisation may also shed some light on lifestyle migra-
tion. Used to describe and account for the physical movement of populations
out of cities and metropolitan areas towards more rural areas, counterurbani-
sation has tended to focus on trends and flows (Halliday and Coombes, 1995).
However, researchers are increasingly adding a motivational element to their
definition (Mitchell, 2004). While there are various motivations that might
drive people to move to rural areas, including house prices, overcrowding,
retirement, and the green movement, the most-documented motivation listed
in the counterurbanisation literature is the rural idyll – that is the pull of the
countryside as a way of life. The essential elements that the rural idyll incor-
porates are a less hurried lifestyle, peace and quiet, space, and greenness (van
Dam et al., 2002). The countryside is thus constructed or (mis)represented as
somewhere people have more time for each other, with a more close-knit

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 Migration and the search for a better way of life

community, somewhere children can grow up in safety (Matthews et al., 2000),

a stress-free environment away from the excesses and constraints of the city.
There is an additional sense that this kind of move is motivated in part by more
extreme anti-urban motivations, with counterurbanisation operating as an
escape from high crime levels, taxes, congestion and pollution. Counterurban
migrations can therefore include ‘back to the land’ moves, quality of life moves
to smaller communities, and even amenity-driven, retirement migration
(Mitchell, 2004).
In the perception of the counterurbanising population, their destinations
offer them the antithesis of the lives that they are leaving behind. Indeed, this
attraction to the countryside has already been well documented in the case of
the British in rural France (Buller and Hoggart, 1994; Barou and Prado, 1995;
Benson, 2007). However, it is the case that the interpretations and meanings of
a place, refracted through a range of media, matter more to migrants than the
actual qualities that can be objectively described (Halliday and Coombes,
1995). As a result, the concrete attributes and characteristics labelled ‘rural’
means the term does not actually have to coincide with the countryside as
such; rurality can be constructed, sought, or created elsewhere (see Boyle
et al., 1998, van Dam et al., 2002). Bearing in mind this social construction of
rurality, when once the countryside was marketed as offering an alternative
way of life, an escape from the ills of modernity and the city, now distant lands
hold the same meanings; in other words, they are being constructed in the
same ways.
Lifestyle migration shares the motivations characteristic of counter-
urbanisation with migrants commonly stressing their anti-modern and anti-
urban sentiments. Within the counterurbanisation discourse, it has been
concluded that all destinations signify the same thing to individuals: a different
and better way of life to that led before migration. How this then translates
into their everyday experiences of life following migration is, however, some-
thing that remains overlooked within the counterurbanisation discourse.

Explaining Lifestyle Migration

From the preceding discussion, it is apparent that both tourism and counterur-
banisation offer a specific lens through which this migration might be better
perceived. However, their explanations do not look at how the act of migration
intersects with life more generally. By encapsulating this form of migration
within the term lifestyle, we shift the focus from the movement itself to the
lifestyle choices inherent within the decision to migrate. In this manner, we
re-place migration in the context of the lives led before and after migration and
draw attention away from the movement as a singular event.The initial migration
therefore emerges as one point of the journey en route to a better way of life
(Benson, 2007). Lifestyle migration is thus intrinsic to the lifestyle trajectories
of individuals, a part of their reflexive project of the self (or the search for a

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Michaela Benson and Karen O’Reilly

potential self as Hoey (2005) describes it, whereby migrants escape disillu-
sionment through seeking an alternative lifestyle. Studies of this phenomenon
should concentrate, therefore, not only on the reasoning and circumstances
leading to migration, but also on how these inform experiences of life within
the destination. Lifestyle migration, as a conceptualisation, thus holds at its
core a commitment to a more nuanced insight into individual circumstances
(including phase in the life course, Oliver, 2008) and their influence on the
trajectory of lives following migration, while also recognising that there are
various historical and material prerequisites for this form of migration.

Lifestyle and habitus

The relocation of lifestyle migrants can broadly be defined as indicative of a
fundamental change in lifestyle, signifying a break, a contrast, a turning point,
and a new beginning. In this respect, the decision to migrate is a lifestyle
choice. But what do we mean by lifestyle in this case and what is the impact of
these choices? Many of the previous studies on this search for a better way of
life emphasise its links to consumption (see for example King et al., 2000; Sunil
et al., 2007; Williams and Hall, 2002).With this in mind, we consider the insights
offered by sociological theorists who make explicit the link between consump-
tion and lifestyle (eg Beck, 1992; Bauman, 2000; Giddens, 1991). Common to
these accounts is the notion that society has now entered post, late, second,
or liquid modernity (depending on the author), characterised by the demise
of traditional social structures and divisions of labour, and a greater degree of
consumer choice. Lifestyle, within this contemporary consumer society, is a life
project for the individual, part of the reflexive project of the self (Giddens,
1991), in which we unremittingly, but never routinely, engage, in order to make
sense of who we are and our place in the world. The lifestyle choices that
individuals make thus, ‘give material form to a particular narrative of self-
identity’ (Giddens, 1991: 81). Consumption enables individuals to sustain a
coherent lifestyle reflecting their self-identity. These approaches to the study
of lifestyle thus argue that, ‘engaging in a particular lifestyle no longer reflects
our already existing status as members of a particular class, for example, but
says something about who we – as individuals – have decided we want to be’
(Sweetman, 2003: 529 original italics).
While there is undoubtedly something appealing about the idea that we
have such extensive freedom of choice, the pervading criticism of this empha-
sis on the individual is that it fails to account for the persisting influence of
social structures on the individual. For example, it remains unclear why the
‘goods’ people seek (community, security, tranquillity) seem to remain so
consistent. In contrast to these approaches, Bourdieu (1984) presents a more
structurally aware description of lifestyle, linking consumption practices,
lifestyle, and social position. In this rendering, lifestyles emerge as the result
of particular material circumstances and a specific class habitus; all lifestyle
choices are thus mediated through our habitus, our embodied class-culture.

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 Migration and the search for a better way of life

Bourdieu’s (1984) approach has been accused of being overly deterministic,

with individuals operating like robots to reproduce the wider structures of
which they are part (Jenkins, 1992, 2000). Caught in a continuous loop circu-
lating between structure and habitus (Jenkins, 2000 cited in Sweetman, 2003),
there is little scope for individuals to engage in actions that are out of keeping
with their class dispositions. However, in response to these criticisms, Bourdieu
himself emphasises that he intends habitus as a generative structure, with the
‘infinite capacity for generating products – thoughts, perceptions, expressions
and actions – whose limits are set by the historically and socially situated
conditions of its production’ (1990: 55). The concept of habitus thus allows
for invention and improvisation, such as lifestyle projects, while placing
certain limits upon these.
While habitus provides us with a middle ground to think beyond the struc-
ture agency dichotomy, Bourdieu’s theories have been accused of lacking
historical specificity as reflexivity has no role other than at times of crisis when
habitus and social field no longer match (Calhoun, 1993; Margolis, 1999). In
response to these criticisms, a number of scholars have examined the possibil-
ity of a habitus including the post-/late modern characteristic of reflexivity.
Their claims are premised on the idea that certain individuals may live with
a constant lack of fit between their habitus and social field, a permanent state
of disruption of their social position (see for example Calhoun, 1993; Feath-
erstone, 1991; Sweetman, 2003). Of these, the most applicable in our case is
Sweetman’s approach, an approach claiming to be more widely applicable
than other approaches, which are limited to certain occupational groups
(Calhoun, 1993) and the petit bourgeoisie (Featherstone, 1991). The ubiquity of
this approach appeals to us because it can incorporate the various individuals
and migrations categorised under the heading of lifestyle migration. In Sweet-
man’s (2003) rendering, it is precisely because of the abundance of choice that
we have no choice other than to adopt reflexivity to help us make decisions.
Certain individuals thus experience reflexivity as second nature. Lifestyle
choices are therefore a response to the increased demands on individuals to
behave reflexively:

. . . the adoption of particular lifestyles . . . whilst dependent initially upon

a reflexive engagement with the various options that are available, may also
reflect an attempt to evade demands for an ongoing reflexivity and to fix,
or ‘anchor’ the self in what can be regarded as a modernist response to the
contemporary social terrain (Sweetman, 2003: 543; see also Sweetman,
1999).

So, while it may at first sight appear that lifestyle migration is a purely
individualised action, driven by particular forces of consumption and self-
realisation, on reflection it becomes clear that even for these privileged
migrants, there are certain limits to their actions that they cannot escape (and
may not even be aware of). It is also evident from their accounts of the

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Michaela Benson and Karen O’Reilly

decision to migrate that reflexivity was a central feature of this particular

lifestyle choice. As Bauman (2000) noted, we now have no choice but to
constantly make choices, to seek the novel, to change.
The lifestyle migration project can thus be seen as an inevitable outcome
of late modernity in which individuals are constrained to seek their own
styles of life yet remain constrained within their own habitus, which in many
ways prescribes the outcome. Migration enables individuals to begin to estab-
lish a way of living that they feel is preferable to life before migration. In this
respect, their actions demonstrate that they reflect on their particular circum-
stances, acting to improve their lot in life; that they make choices demon-
strates that, to a degree, lifestyle migration is an individualised action.
However, while they stress that they are in the process of realising their
dreams, it is evident that these remain informed by their lives before migra-
tion, and in this respect, are not the break from their pasts that they had
previously envisaged (see Benson, 2007; O’Reilly, 2007a). They bring with
them skills, expectations, and aspirations from their lives before migration.
Their lifestyle choices thus remain mediated by their habitus, and framed by
their levels of symbolic capital. In other words, their relative symbolic capital
(incorporating educational, cultural, and social capital) impacts on the deci-
sion to migrate and the destinations chosen, but also the life then led in the
destination. For example, many of the trends we have outlined above lead
to the inscribing of social inequalities onto social space, resulting in what
Bourdieu (1993) has called site effects, yet this remains to be explored in
depth by any studies.

Historical and Material Conditions

Thus far, we have provided an explanation of lifestyle migration that demon-
strates that individual motivations are influenced by wider structural concerns.
At present, there are unprecedented numbers of people moving for a better
way of life, and we argue that without certain historical and material condi-
tions, namely relative economic privilege and the ease of movement, these
levels would never have been attained. As Amit (2007) argues, all movement
is possible because of asymmetrical distinction; those who travel can do so
because they have access to certain resources, namely money and time, while
others do not.
The economic privilege of lifestyle migrants has been well documented in
the case of International Retirement Migration and second-home owners.
A standard explanation of International Retirement Migration includes the
discussion of how these migrants are of a generation, the baby-boomers, who
have, for the first time in the history of the Western world, high levels of
expendable wealth accumulated during their working lives and from the assets
gained from property. This economic privilege facilitates the search for a new
and different way of life. Second-home owners are also emblematic of this
trend, purchasing, with their surplus capital, second homes somewhere with a

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 Migration and the search for a better way of life

good climate, relatively cheap, and fairly close to home (Aledo Tur, 2005). As
with lifestyle migrants more generally, these second-home owners buy in areas
which variously represent something more ‘authentic’, a ‘real life’ (Hall and
Müller, 2004).
The example set by second-home owners and retirement migrants helps to
explain how relative economic privilege facilitates migration. In many cases,
it allows individuals to purchase a property in the destination without a mort-
gage, lowering the daily cost of living substantially. However, this recogni-
tion masks the various levels of economic privilege experienced by lifestyle
migrants. For example, while second-home owners have a metaphorical foot in
each (or many) location(s), to fund their lifestyles, many lifestyle migrants
have had to consolidate all their economic resources to move (lock, stock, and
barrel, as it were) to a new primary home (O’Reilly, 2007). Others are so keen
to be a part of this race to a better quality of life that they rent property, and
some – like the Australian Grey Nomads and the American Snowbirds (Onyx
and Leonard, 2005) – even live in caravans and mobile homes.
Relative economic privilege facilitates further travel following migration.
In the contemporary world, the spread of communications means that it is
easier to keep in touch with friends and family, but it is also easier to travel to
see them. Low-cost airlines and the ease of road travel also encourage the idea
of lifestyle migration, as distances seem to become smaller. But there is also
the relaxing of borders in Europe, allowing for freedom of movement between
member states. And in other parts of the world, receiving states, which are
keen to profit economically from incoming migrants, encourage lifestyle
migration across borders. In Panama and Costa Rica for example, there are
special visas for US citizens, both for retirees and for those wanting to set up
business, which smooth over the otherwise complicated bureaucracy involved
in moving from one country to another.
Undoubtedly, globalisation has a role to play in the rise of this form of
migration. Our awareness of our place in the world has changed in line with
an increasing sense of the world as a single place (Robertson, 1992), perceived
time-space compression (Giddens, 1990), and our increased involvement in
the network society (Castells, 2000). The rise in the number of lifestyle
migrants reflects also the increasing mobility in the world, with an increasing
number of countries and individuals affected by migration (Castles and
Miller, 2003; Faist, 2000; Papastergiadis, 2000), and the development of mass
tourism. But other changes affecting the individual more directly also prompt
lifestyle migration. With rising living standards and an increase in expendable
wealth, more and more people in the developed world can make informed
and financially viable choices about their lifestyles. This is also aided by more
flexibility in work lives and in the way we perceive our lives, heralded by an
increased reflexivity. Finally, we should not forget that there are intermediar-
ies who help us to make decisions about our lives. In the case of lifestyle
migration, these include estate agents, financial institutions – not only helping
us to organise the finances to move abroad, easing the process of moving with

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Michaela Benson and Karen O’Reilly

tailored relocation advice and support – and the mass media with its extensive
‘property pornography’.

Conclusion

In this article we have argued that a form of international migration is

developing which involves affluent migrants, much as traditional, colonial
migrations have, but which is distinct in terms of motivations and objective
conditions. The various ways that this trend, which we label lifestyle migration,
has been conceptualised to date, do not allow for a nuanced and inclusive
understanding of the phenomenon to emerge. It is evident from the theoretical
discussion presented here, that this form of migration has grown as a result of
very particular historical and material conditions, particularly globalisation,
increased mobility, flexibility, and increased relative wealth. Furthermore,
while it is evident that there are common motivations – the search for a better
way of life and the ideology of escape, themes similarly present in discussions
of travel and tourism – the way that these are configured varies depending on
the circumstances of the migrants’ lives before migration. Cases of lifestyle
migration can only be fully understood, therefore, by examining the decision
to migrate within the context of the migrants’ lives before migration, but also
by taking into account the particularities of their lives following migration.
Lifestyle migration is a novel extension of a phenomenon with a history,
made possible as a result of global developments of the past 50 or 60 years.
It relates specifically to the relative economic privilege of individuals in the
developed world, the reflexivity evident in post-/late modernity, the construc-
tion of particular places as offering alternative lifestyles, and a more general
ease (or freedom) of movement. As we have argued in this article, lifestyle
migration occurs as a result of the reflexive assessment of opportunities –
whether life will be better here or there – but these opportunities are not
limitless; they emerge from the habitus of the individual, and are thus con-
strained. In this rendering, the rapid increase in the numbers of lifestyle
migrants cannot simply be explained as the result of increased levels of eco-
nomic privilege, but is more specifically related to the increased levels of
reflexivity in the contemporary world. The search for a better way of life, while
held in common with other migrants such as refugees and asylum seekers, here
implies something distinct, connoting a particular lifestyle choice specific
to individuals of the developed world. The current growth and diversity of
lifestyle migration is thus a product arising from the historical and material
conditions of post- or late modernity.
We would like to finish by considering why such a privileged group should
be the subject of ongoing scientific attention. First, the phenomenon is both
growing and diversifying. In the last ten to fifteen years, residential tourism
in some areas (characterised by short-term residence, second-home owner-
ship, and extended holidays) has paved the way for retirement migration

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 Migration and the search for a better way of life

(retirement from work lending the opportunity to start a new life elsewhere),
and blossomed into lifestyle migration. Increasing numbers of working-age
individuals can be counted among the ranks of these ‘lifestyle migrants’,
similarly seeking new and more fulfilling ways of living. And if expatriate and
property marketing websites and magazines are anything to go by, there is
evidence that the phenomenon is spreading to lands that are more distant.
Secondly, there are important considerations in terms of the impact that these
migrants may have on receiving communities. For, while the absolute numbers
of those migrating from developed societies in search of a better quality of life
may be small, the net effect on the culture, economy, and environment of a
small community can be far-reaching. This is particularly so where an area has
attracted a large concentration of lifestyle migrants. In some cases, this has
led to a majority foreign population, which has massive implications for local
public services and welfare provision. Ironically, in the process of gaining the
better way of life that they seek, the migrants may effectively destroy their
goal as their destinations become increasingly developed (Tremblay and
O’Reilly, 2004; Benson, 2007).
Future research projects need to examine the impact of this form of migra-
tion on the communities left behind as well as in the destinations. They need
to examine more closely the interactions between migrants and hosts, as well
as recognising the true impact of rising property prices and environmental
damage to the host area (Aledo Tur, 2005). Franklin (2003) is right to note that
tourism-related migration leaves positive traces in the form of enduring and
meaningful relationships between people and places, that places become
twinned and linked. But it is entirely plausible that such links are asymmetrical
(Amit, 2007), that some groups benefit while others lose out, and that the shift
in power and capital consolidates rather than confounds existing differences.
In this exploratory article, we have presented both the general characteris-
tics of lifestyle migration, and a brief account of some of the historical and
material conditions from which it emerges. The exploratory framework we
present here is intended as a way of conceptualising this migration phenom-
enon. However, it is evident that over the next few years, this phenomenon will
have an increasing impact on sending and receiving communities. Our aim is
not to present a homogenised category, a one-size-fits-all model. Within this
framework, we allow much scope for diversity and movement, and anticipate
that as this field of study expands, there will be further dialogue as to the way
that this framework can be developed and refined.As it stands we reiterate our
broad, working definition of the phenomenon, as relatively affluent individu-
als, moving either part-time or full-time, permanently or temporarily, to places
which, for various reasons, signify for the migrants something loosely defined
as quality of life.

Keele University and Received 28 October 2008

Loughborough University Finally accepted 3 March 2009

© 2009 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2009 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 621
Michaela Benson and Karen O’Reilly

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the two referees and the journal editors for their very helpful
comments on an earlier draft of the paper. We would also like to thank members of the Lifestyle
Migration Hub, especially but not only Caroline Oliver and Catherine Trundle, for their support,
comments, advice, and for sharing their ongoing research with us.

Notes

1 We use the term ‘renowned’ here to reflect the extensive media coverage of these migrants,
which includes television documentaries, soap operas, and regular newspaper articles.
2 In particular, there has been a persistent interest in Northern European and Scandinavian
migration to coastal Spain. (See Aledo, 2005; Casado-Díaz, 2006; Gustafson, 2001; Huber and
O’Reilly, 2004; Helset et al., 2005; Karisto, 2005; Oliver, 2007; O’Reilly, 2000; Rodríguez et al.,
2005; Schriewer and García, 2005).

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